IST and Ourossogui Eye Clinic

I've just finished a whirlwind month of work, all of which took place out of site, so it's been quite a change of pace from my slow month of Ramadan. I caught a Peace Corps ride down to Dakar about a month ago, an air conditioned land rover was a nice alternative to a cramped and stuffy public transport car. [Side bar on public transport here: it is miserable even in the most "luxurious" of forms. A 7 seater (sept-place in French) car (a station wagon with a third row) is the nicest/fastest way to get anywhere, but 12 hours in a cramped car is still less than pleasant. And there is no schedule. Cars leave when they are full so you can spend anywhere from no time to 5 hours waiting for a car to leave once you've gotten there and bought your ticket.. (Though to be fair it's mostly the 14 seater vans or big (50ish people) buses that you're waiting 2+ hours for.)]

After a few days relaxing and exploring Dakar I went to the Thies Training Center again, this time for our In-Service Training (IST) where I reconnected with my fellow stagiers and got inspired for potential projects I could do in my site. It was crazy to be back at the training center, but very cool to check in with everyone and see how different our various experiences already were. We had 10 days of sessions on gardening, maternal and child health, sanitation, and various other types of projects volunteers in sector have done.

After that I came straight back to Ourossogui to participate in an Eye Clinic another volunteer in the area organized. The trip back ended up taking 2 days, due to some misplaced trust in the buses. We caught an early morning bus outside of Thies which was supposed to take us all the way to Ourossogui (a 12 hour direct ride, though we knew it'd be longer with the inevitable stops). After a few too many stops and transfers, we decided to get out in Ndioum where the northern regional house is, as it was already 6:30 and a midnight arrival in Ourossogui (especially on the horrible roads for the last 200km) was less than desirable.

At the eye clinic we worked for 2 weeks at the hospital with a team of American doctors from an NGO and performed 140 cataract surgeries during this time. My role varied throughout the 2 weeks as we had 2 different groups of people for the 2 weeks. The first week I stayed primarily in the pre-op room, conducting vision exams in Pulaar, and prepping the patients by giving anything from eyedrops to information. The second week I worked with the post-ops, as well as giving out reading glasses (as the NGO brought boxes of those as well). It was overall an incredibly interesting experience. There were definitely parts that made me anxious (taking patients without knowing their medical history, sometimes not being sure if the patient really knew 100% of what the surgery entailed--I definitely had a few older women turn to me after I put in their dilating eye drops if they were done and could go home...) but overall, seeing some people come out with markedly improved vision was incredibly rewarding. I've also realized I am not cut out for the medical profession, just seeing the anesthesia injection into the eye area made me incredibly queasy. I can't even begin to imagine how scared some of the patients were (it was many's first time receiving this type of medical care) and I can only hope my limited Pulaar was able to ease some of their minds.

Busy OR

One of the cataracts

Group of happy post-ops

I will soon head back to village after a month away and I'm excited to get back to that part of my Peace Corps life.. I've missed my host family, friends, and even the village food!